With nuclear families and rise in number of elderly patients, health care providers need to find out a way to manage their health and healthy life style. Like Tele-shopping, is Tele-medicine and Tele-health monitoring a possible solution?                                                         Team@CMHF

Recently the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) held a conference about the efficacy of mobile phone usage to improve patient health.

Discussions took place about the ROI for chronic disease management through mobile health and outcomes for remote patient monitoring focusing on whether telemedicine is excluded from meaningful use and reasons why telehealth should be a key component in Accountable Care Organizations (ACO).

The purpose was to look at new technology that will help the elderly stay at home and to maintain a healthy lifestyle and most importantly to remain independent in their homes.

The in home remote monitoring allows for the patient to take a more active role in their health.  It allows them to see how certain behaviors can have an immediate impact on their disease state.  This impact can be either positive or negative so it works as a reward system as well as a way to prevent exacerbations.

Telehealth is the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health-related education, public health and health administration. Technologies include videoconferencing, the internet, store-and-forward imaging, streaming media, and terrestrial and wireless communications.

Falls are the leading cause of injury among adults aged 65 years and older, and can result in severe injuries such as hip fractures and head traumas. Many older adults, even if they have not suffered a fall, become afraid of falling and restrict their activity, which drastically decreases their quality of life. Some of the “fall detection devices will actually notify you if there is no movement for a set time or if there is a dramatic drop, so it’s more of an instant response; so when a change in location is noted it will be sent to the server. Telehealth can reduce re-hospitalizations up to forty percent in some instances.

Reference:http://www.topix.com/city/lafayette-la/2011/08/chronic-disease-management-through-mobile-health